Ruth Lytton (Joyce Van Patten) kills her older brother Edward (Tim O'Connor) after he decides to sell the family business, the Lytton Museum, to which Ruth has devoted her entire life as curator. She hires Milton Schaffer, an ex-con who worked at the museum, to stage a robbery at the museum. During the robbery she double-crosses Milton and shoots him dead. She then kills Edward when he comes to investigate the gunshot.
Her plan is to make it look like the two men killed each other in the middle of an attempted robbery. Celeste Holm plays Ruth's older widowed sister, Mrs. Brandt, who faints whenever the word homicide is mentioned, and Jeannie Berlin plays Ruth's niece, Janie Brandt. When Ruth realizes Columbo has not fallen for the staged robbery, she tries, out of desperation, to frame Janie for stealing valuable items from the museum and killing Edward to cover it up.
Final clue/twist: Ruth's habit of turning lights off when she leaves a room foils her plan to have the double-murder chalked up to the two men shooting each other, as Columbo realizes it would be impossible in a dark room. Later, Columbo takes the ancient belt-buckle (which had been planted in Janie's room to frame her) to Janie's prison cell. Janie uses it as an ashtray, showing that she has no idea what it is, and thus proving her innocence.
Columbo also believes Ruth killed Janie's father, Peter Brandt – whom she had loved until her sister snatched him away – many years earlier. He agrees to "forget" about it (to protect Janie who doesn't know the truth about her father's death, nor about her mother, for it is hinted that Ruth is actually Janie's mother rather than her aunt) in exchange for Ruth's confession to the two current murders.
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